interview expose's. It not only provided valuable, even critical warning
information to a large part of the population, but exposed mendacious
arguments, misdirection and obfuscation by the cosmetic industry.
Here's a short intro to the main debate, which you can read or hear
by clicking on the URL provided. Below that, what should be an
invaluable discussion and access to a cosmetic safety database.
Ed
The Debate:
Lead in Lipstick? Coal Tar in Shampoo? As New Bill Calls for Stricter Rules
on Beauty Products, a Debate Between Campaign for Safe Cosmetics Founder and
Cosmetics Industry Spokesperson *
Do you know what's in the personal care products that you use? Rep. Jan
Schakowsky (D-IL) introduced legislation Tuesday night that would toughen
safety standards for beauty products and require regular government testing
for hazardous ingredients. We host a debate between Stacy Malkan, founder of
the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and author of Not Just a Pretty Face: The
Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry, and John Bailey, chief scientist at the
Personal Care Products Council and a spokesperson for the cosmetics
industry.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/21/lead_in_lipstick_coal_tar_in
***
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/21/skin_deep_online_cosmetics_safety_database
Skin Deep: Online Cosmetics Safety Database Rates 62,000+ Beauty Products
Democracy Now Interview
July 21, 2010
AMY GOODMAN: We're also joined from Washington, DC, by Jane Houlihan, the
vice president for research at the Environmental Working Group and the
creator of Skin Deep, which is an online cosmetics safety database. The
database provides safety ratings for more than 62,000 products on the market
and receives, oh, more than a million hits per month.
Jane Houlihan, we want to thank you very much for joining us. Explain what
this database is. How can people use it? And what is it based on?
JANE HOULIHAN: It's at cosmeticsdatabase.com, online. We launched it in
2004. It contains safety reports for 60,000 products on the market. It's
backed up by government studies and testing that give you in-depth
information about what exactly is in your products. When you get online and
use it, you'll find more than 500 products that contain ingredients that are
banned in other countries. You'll find a hundred products that contain
ingredients that the industry itself has said are unsafe in cosmetics. And
you'll find that 99 percent of the products you find in our database contain
at least one ingredient, and many times dozens of ingredients, that haven't
been assessed for safety by the FDA, by the cosmetics industry itself, or
any other publicly accountable institution. Like your previous guest, Stacy
Malkan, you can log on, look up your products, and see how many
cancer-causing chemicals are in your products, how many compounds linked to
hormone disruption and other basic health problems. This is an industry
that's
self-regulated, largely, and what we find across the industry, with our Skin
Deep database, is that companies are making very different choices about
what's safe enough to use in these products.
ANJALI KAMAT: Jane Houlihan, who are the worst offenders? What would you say
are the most dangerous products that are very commonly used?
JANE HOULIHAN: Dark permanent hair dyes are linked to cancer. When you use
those for a long time over your lifetime, those can be quite toxic. Nail
care products tend to contain some of the most hazardous ingredients. But we
also find carcinogens in baby products. We find skin lighteners that contain
chemicals linked to cancer. So, a really broad range of issues. One very
problematic area is sunscreens, which are poorly regulated in the US. We
found that we could recommend only eight percent of sunscreens on the market
that could really give you broad spectrum protection you need to
prevent-help prevent skin cancer and also that don't contain hazardous
ingredients that can seep through the skin and pose other kinds of health
concerns.
AMY GOODMAN: When you're looking, for example, at sunscreen, what should you
avoid? What are the eight percent that you recommend?
JANE HOULIHAN: You should look for zinc and titanium. Those give you good
broad spectrum protection. You should avoid a very common sunscreen chemical
called oxybenzone. That's a potent hormone disruptor, potential hormone
disruptor for people. It's in about 60 percent of all products. And this
year we're also recommending that you avoid vitamin A in sunscreen. We think
of vitamins as very good for us, but on the skin, a new FDA study shows that
vitamin A could actually increase the risk for skin cancer when it's applied
on the skin.
AMY GOODMAN: What is the hope? What are people to do-men and women, girls
and boys, infants?
JANE HOULIHAN: Right now, it's very much a "buyer beware" market. Our work
since 2004 shows that so many products contain ingredients that flat-out
haven't been assessed for safety in a public way, so companies are making
their own decisions. What we really need is change at the top level, where
we're seeing in federal law a safety standard for cosmetics, so these
companies have a level playing field, and so when you go to the store, you
know that what you're pulling from the shelf is safe enough to use. Right
now what we have is a system that requires each one of us to get educated on
what's in our products. You can use Skin Deep to get easy-to-use, free
safety reports for the products you use every day and search for safer
products that way. What we need, in the end, is a system that, at the very
highest level, ensures that we have safe products on all of our store
shelves for everyone in our families.
AMY GOODMAN: The website is www.cosmeticsdatabase.com?
JANE HOULIHAN: Cosmeticsdatabase.com is the website. You'll find 60,000
products, about 8,000 ingredients, and free online safety reports there that
are easy to use and great for finding safer products and helping you bring
safer products into the home for your family.
AMY GOODMAN: Jane Houlihan, I want to thank you very much for joining us,
vice president for research at the Environmental Working Group and creator
of the Skin Deep database.
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